Author's Note: Thank you very much to all who reviewed at this point: Mnementh, Olde Magick, Dawnbringer, silversunemily, Sekhmet, AmayaNightRain11, orlandoluv, Daine, and two people whose reviews didn't show up- me and ladyknight. Too all the people who asked or commented about red hair being bad luck- that's just something I made up, but you could look on it as being because of the Lioness. To Dawnbringer, who asked who her parents were, you'll find that out later in the story. They aren't people you would know about- I made them up- but it is possible to know about them because- well, I can't really give any more away, but keep in mind that this is about two-hundred years after the present Tortall books.
I hope you like this chapter- I was worried that it had too much of Alythe's thoughts and not enough of the actual storyline- please tell me what you think. The next chapter will probably be longer than this one, but I'm not sure…
Lioness
By Ice-otter
Chapter One-
¦Alythe¦- Gifted
Smoke on the air was enough to confirm her suspicions, but she would not turn around and face the town that had been her home for all of nine years- most of her lifetime. Instead she turned to face the sunset, letting the wind blow through her hair and take away the smell of smoke and death. She stood there and would not turn around, knowing the sight that would meet her eyes if she did so. Bad enough if bandits had done this- but the village was well prepared against bandit attacks. The destruction of her home had been the work of the army of the King of Tortall. She knew not why they did this, or whether the King himself had any say in it, but it had only been recently that the village had started to receive news of such attacks from nearby towns. They had ignored the warnings, had not taken advantage of what little time they had to prepare… and it had cost them. From what she had heard of the attacks, there were no survivors. Unless someone, like herself, had been away… But she could not afford to hope.
Bracing herself, she turned, her eyes shut. And then she opened them, before she could change her mind, wishing that she was wrong, wishing that the army she had seen riding through the forest had come for another reason altogether. But no. The smoke she had smelled rose up from the remains of small, burnt houses, she could see the bodies that littered the streets, though not in detail, and the charred remains of the house she had lived in with Marsa. For the second time in her life… she had no home. Nowhere to go. Would she, as she had done last time, simply wander until she found a new home? Or was she old enough to fend for herself now. Thirteen years- some girls were married at that age. But where would she go? How would she survive?
Movement at the corner of her eye made her turn her head. A lone horseman still patrolled the streets of the village, as if checking for those still alive. One of the army, not a villager- why had they left him here? He looked up, and spotted her. She flinched. What would happen to her now? She was obviously one of the village- would she be killed as had the others? She could not outrun a soldier on horseback. "Girl!" He called, his voice faint and far away. "Girl, come here!" She began to back away slowly- perhaps he could not follow her so quickly in the trees. "I'm not going to hurt you!" He yelled towards her. She raised one eyebrow skeptically, knowing he would not see. "I'm just looking for someone- someone who used to live here!" He pointed towards the ground, the ruins of the village. Did he not recognize her as living here after all? She could not afford to believe that. Again she backed away. The trees, and perhaps safety, were very close. Then he moved, spurring his horse so that it charged towards her. She turned and ran, but in seconds the horse was blocking her path. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just looking for someone- a woman. She was a mage, and she was going to be executed."
"A m-mage?" she couldn't help but ask. "Here- I mean- there? In that village?"
"We were hunting one, yes. The King knew her to live there, but no-one in the village- this one or the other ones we went to- would admit to knowing of her. Too dangerous, if we didn't know where she was, so we killed them all. But we never found her." She shuddered. He spoke of killing as if it were simply- something one did to people. "So. You didn't see a woman- or maybe a girl- running away from here, did you?" She didn't reply immediately. She was confused. She would have known, surely, had there been a mage living in the village. They were evil people, she had heard, common in days long ago- but then they had not been bad at all. But then the King had said that no-one but himself could practice magecraft- and the mages- the Gifted, they had been called- had revolted. Now anyone with a Gift of magic was to be executed, before they could rise up against the King. But she had never truly though that those people were- real. They were in legends, and she thought, that was all. Now, the army came looking for a woman who was a mage. Someone who hadn't been killed in any of the attacks, someone who lived in her village- and unless anyone else had lived, the only survivor was- herself.
"I- I didn't see anyone. No, I saw no-one, but there was- when I came here, I saw footprints- heading that way-" she pointed vaguely in the direction of a path that led to the nearest village. The direction opposite from the one that she was heading. She knew she could not be a mage, but let them go in the other direction all the same. She would be killed if the man ever learned she had come from the village that he and the army had just destroyed- and she wanted to be as far from them as possible.
"Thank you. Here-" he tossed her a copper coin. She blinked at it. A small coin, but coins were rarely, if ever, used in the village. They traded, mostly. Only the rare peddler or merchant who passed through would want money. But the village was behind her now, and the copper would be useful, now that she was leaving. She was unsure what she could buy with it, but it was at least enough for some food, if she was unable to find any. She would keep from starving, at least at first.
"Thank you, sir." She gripped the coin and ran, deep into the forest. She didn't know where she was headed, but behind her there were only more villages, destroyed as hers had been, and then desert. She could not possibly survive there. This was the only way to go.
She slowed to a walk, eventually, and began to think again about what the man had said. A mage, living in the village. He had to have been wrong. She was sure there was no mage, and doubly sure that it was not herself. Which meant that it was no-one, sine she was the only survivor of the attack. And still she could not see reason in the King's- or the army's- actions of destroying every village they came to when they denied knowing the whereabouts of a mage that did not- could not- exist. Still, she could not help but consider- what if she was the mage? She had been so sure seconds ago- but now she recalled stories of people- mages- who lived their lives be day and went about doing horrible deeds by night. Red hair- bad luck, but she didn't know why. Could it be the mark of a mage? A memory, from the night she had met Marsa flashed through her mind- "Now- my sister had red hair, and her name was Alythe. How about if we call you that? She's dead, so there won't be any mixing the two of you up." Red hair- Marsa's sister- could Marsa be the mage that they hunted? Did that mean she was still alive?
But no, now she was allowing her mind to wander like that- there was really nothing pointing to Marsa as the mage. So far it seemed most likely that it was herself- or at least the army thought it was. What had she heard of mages? They could start fires with their Gifts… she concentrated hard on the ground in front of her, specifically on a dry-looking fallen branch, willing a fire to start. Nothing happened. Does that mean I'm not a mage? Was her first thought. And her second was- Is that a good or bad thing? Starting a fire might have been useful, and the soldiers already were looking for her- or perhaps someone else. She concentrated again on the branch, imagining a flame erupting from the gray-brown bark, and spreading to the pine needles below it, all along the forest floor, up into the trunks and branches of the trees around her… Opening her eyes, she blinked. A small flame had appeared, not on the branch as she had expected, but on the dry pine needles.
Oh gods! I've started a forest fire… But the flame disappeared the moment she stopped concentrating. I really am a mage. But not- not a horrible, evil person. I don't want to kill the King- or didn't until his army destroyed my village. And I won't be an evil mage, ever- I'll help people, and hide from the King. What else can I do? She could not remember, except for starting fires, anything else that mages could do but others couldn't. The King- knew I was a mage before even I did. Can I sense other mages, perhaps? That was not something she could try here and now- and she could not think of anything else. Perhaps she would find out more about her abilities later on. For now, she did not even know where she was headed. She set off again, carefully treading around the burnt place she had created on the forest floor.
§
The village reminded her only slightly of her own- her first impression was that it was much bigger. It was the towering inn that gave her this idea, at three stories the largest building she had ever seen. She asked for a room there, holding out her copper coin, which the innkeeper just looked at. "Is it enough?" she asked softly.
"Oh, it's enough. It's just a coin from the capital that's all. I haven't seen a coin from Corus in a long time…" Where else would it be from, she wondered, as she surveyed the room she had been given. Small, with a comfortable-looking bed and a window overlooking the well-lit streets of the town and beyond them, the forest from which she had come. She had no money now, she realized. This had been a stupid thing to do. But what else was there? Sighing, she lay down on the bed and slept.
Marsa spoke to her in the nightmare, her face death-pale, her eyes blood-shot. "I could have been alive. You could have looked for me. But now I'm dead- we're all dead- and it's your fault…your fault… you are the mage they came searching for, and you should have been the one they killed, not the rest of us…"
And the other villagers were behind her, chanting "Your fault, your fault," in low, rasping voices.
She awoke and it was still dark. The real Marsa wouldn't have blamed her. The other villagers might, but not Marsa. The dream couldn't have been real… And with that thought she fell asleep again.